Why is free Kosovo providing highest number of “asylum-seekers” to the EU?

Summary:
According to the most-recently published statistics, there were 185,000 first-time asylum-seekers in the EU in the first quarter of this year. Contrary to what you might think, the biggest group was not the highly-publicized Syrians or Eritreans, but Kosovars, whom we purportedly liberated in 1999.
Who are these 49,000 Kosovars? Are they ethnic Serbs suffering under ethnic Albanian rule? Or are they ethnic Albanians, because being ruled by a corrupt ethnic mafia of terrorists and organ-traffickers is sufficient grounds for seeking asylum? How many are seeking Western European goodies rather than “fleeing persecution”?
Incidentally, this is a good example of how Open Borders do not solve the poor country’s problems as “more than two-thirds of Kosovar Albanians already living outside Kosovo, most of them in EU countries.” And yet, more are still coming.
Will the last person in Kosovo please turn off the lights? Maybe the last person could also give the keys to the province back to Serbia. Was it really worth violating international law to bomb Serbia, and worth breaking our promise* not to unilaterally amputate Kosovo, if the overwhelming majority of Kosovars cannot be bothered to stay there and develop the country?
By the way, the Prime Minister of Albania has said “unification” of Kosovo and Albania is “inevitable.

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According to the most-recently published statistics, there were 185,000 first-time asylum-seekers in the EU in the first quarter of this year. Contrary to what you might think, the biggest group was not the highly-publicized Syrians or Eritreans, but Kosovars, whom we purportedly liberated in 1999.

Who are these 49,000 Kosovars? Are they ethnic Serbs suffering under ethnic Albanian rule? Or are they ethnic Albanians, because being ruled by a corrupt ethnic mafia of terrorists and organ-traffickers is sufficient grounds for seeking asylum? How many are seeking Western European goodies rather than “fleeing persecution”?

Will the last person in Kosovo please turn off the lights? Maybe the last person could also give the keys to the province back to Serbia. Was it really worth violating international law to bomb Serbia, and worth breaking our promise* not to unilaterally amputate Kosovo, if the overwhelming majority of Kosovars cannot be bothered to stay there and develop the country?

* Kosovo was obviously an easy precedent for Russians’ to cite in favor of their unilateral annexation of Crimea. Really it’s a good precedent for unilateral secession of any number of ethnic enclaves, which is why Argentina, Armenia, and Spain still don’t recognize Kosovo. Divide-and-rule for thee, and not for me…

This is the blog of European affairs writer Craig James Willy. Elite and popular discourse on the European Union tends to have a weak relationship with reality. Both pundits and politicians – whether American liberals or conservatives, British eurosceptics or simply French – tend to project their national dreams and nightmares upon it. I have a nuanced analysis of Europe based on the primacy and diversity of national realities and on actual EU decision-making practices.